Nordsee One GmbH oversees the construction and operation of Nordsee One Wind Farm located in the German North Sea. To ensure the integrity of their operations, Nordsee One ensures that their wind turbines are maintained for power and efficiency.
At the trial, BeeX’s Hovering Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (HAUV) A.IKANBILIS:
Inspections are required by the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency and are especially crucial for critical areas of wind turbine foundations. Areas include cable protection systems, scour protection systems against pile erosion, and cathodic protection anodes against galvanic corrosion.
Nordsee One was reluctant to use traditional means nortof inspection through common ROVs, as larger, expensive vessels would be required for the activation and deployment of these vehicles. Additionally, from their previous experiences, data quality depended on the skill of the ROV’s operator.
Hence, Nordsee One desired to find a more cost-effective and data accurate vehicle.
This was where BeeX’s A.IKANBILIS came into the picture.
As HAUVs do not require cranes for launch and recovery, BeeX did away with the typical expensive vessels required for ROV launches.
A crane on the wind turbine was used to lift the HAUV up from the crew vessel with BeeX and Nordsee One technicians onto the transition piece, a deck around the middle of a wind turbine. From there, the HAUV was slowly lowered into the waters using a tether.
BeeX’s novel technology of adaptive autonomy was put to the test. As this was a trial, a single turbine was the scope of the job.
Despite strong currents of the German North Sea, BeeX’s HAUV surveying and navigation continued uninterrupted, maneuvering around the wind turbine’s monopile and gathering quality data autonomously. The vehicle’s current-fighting capabilities fostered the collection and formation of high-resolution geo-referenced visual and sonar captures, 3D visualisations, and Mosaic mappings of the monopile.
A.IKANBILIS did not disappoint.
Nordsee One’s team of technicians were thoroughly impressed. They mentioned that A.IKANBILIS’ capabilities were comparable to a larger and heavier vehicle considered to be the industry’s benchmark for inspection and observation.
Over 5 days, captured data was optimized to construct snapshot reports of actionable information to the end-user, showing the most important areas observed during the inspections.
"While we hear a lot about remotely operated and autonomous technologies for marine data acquisition and underwater inspection, this is the first time we have witnessed a platform actually think and react accordingly to ensure an optimal approach based on the prevailing conditions. The speed and quality of the data reporting are unprecedented, and we are delighted to be trialing these innovations to achieve maximum value at our windfarms."
Jan Schmökel, Balance of Plant Engineer at Nordsee One GmbH
With BeeX’s game-changing technology, the HAUV A.IKANBILIS has huge potential across maritime inspections. Given maintenance can be done at a lower cost with BeeX, windfarm industry players can save time, money, and manpower. With that, A.IKANBILIS can open new possibilities for asset owners in the wind industry.
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